Family with long history will write 2013 chapter in Wayne

On Saturday, September 19, Wayne hosted a meeting of the Wing Assembly of Maine, whose success has given rise to plans to bring the family’s 2013 National Reunion to Augusta. A newly formed "Friends of the Wing Ring Cemetery" will continue the effort to document and preserve Wayne's unusual Wing family burial ground.

"Maine has been in the running for a reunion for some time, and finally it was chosen to host the 2013 reunion," said Raymond Wing, Wing Assembly President. "Of course, it greatly helps to have an organized group of folks willing to plan a successful reunion," he said.

The Wing Association, which comprises 14 districts plus Maine, with 900 members, has held reunions since 1902 and annually since 1962, every other year in Sandwich, Mass., and in one of its other districts during alternate years.

As a result of the Wayne meeting, Augusta will be the location of the 2013 national meeting. Wayne will be a side trip. “While details haven’t been worked out yet, we typically meet Father’s Day weekend in June. It looks like a reunion will be held at Augusta …but we would love to have a side trip to Wayne,” said Wing.

The purpose of the newly formed Wing Ring Friends is to continue research on the cemetery, to ensure its upkeep, and to explore its possible continued functioning as a repository for cremated remains of Wing descendants. Trustees are Marion Sherman and Stephanie Haines. Eloise Ault is Secretary pro tem.

The unveiling of a plaque marking the Wing Ring’s National Register of Historic Places status was the focal point of the recent September 19 gathering of Maine Wings, attended by about 40. The meeting was the work of many local organizations and individuals, among them Wayne Historical Society’s Ault and Ed Kallop; Linda McKee, Chair of the Schoolhouse Preservation Committee; Mary Farnham of the North Wayne Church; Jane Giglio, Wayne Wing descendant, and Buzz Schultze, caretaker of the Wing Ring Cemetery.

The Wing gathering opened at the North Wayne Church at 9:30 for a business meeting followed by a lunch of pork roast, peas, and apple crisp, the work of Farnham. The group then moved to the North Wayne Schoolhouse for a presentation by McKee on the restoration of the school and by Ault on the “builder generation” of the Wing cemetery and the saga of the cemetery’s National Register plaque.

The Wing descendants then drove to the Wing Ring. An invocation by Wayne Community Church’s Pastor Kristin White and an address by Sherman, mother of the President of the Wing Assembly, preceded the unveiling of the National Register plaque.

The group ended its day with a visit to the Wayne Townhouse for a lecture by Kallop on its history. The building's construction was aided by many Wing descendants.

The Wing family traces its roots back to 1584 Banbury, England, to the union of Matthew and Mary. One of their three sons, John, is the ancestor of the American Wings. John was an Oxford-educated minister. He was married to Deborah and was the father of four sons and one daughter. His ministry took him to Holland and then back to London, but he died at 46. After a few years, Deborah, along with her four sons, joined her father and took passage for the Massachusetts Bay Colony, arriving there in 1632 and settling in Lynn and Sandwich, Mass.

Two of the brothers, Daniel & Stephen, were among the founding members of The Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) and were severely persecuted by the government at the time before there was freedom of religion.

The story of the local branch of the Wings picks up after the American Revolution, when a family of Wings moved from Massachusetts to Wayne and became the progenitors of many more Wings, some of whom are buried in the local Wing Cemetery.